February 10, 2009 - 8:54am
high altitude bread
Hello, I'm fairly new to bread making, but I dove in with both feet and enjoy it thoroughly. This weekend I'll be visiting my mother who lives at about 6800 ft. She really wants us to bake a lot of bread while I'm there and I don't want to let her down with a bunch of sunken or burned loaves. I don't know if it makes a difference, but I mainly work with sourdoughs, often with whole grains. Can anybody offer some advise?





I'm baking a lot of sourdoughs presently, with whole grains and seeds etc, and I'm at 9000 feet here in Colorado.
I'm not finding that I have to change any formulas from either BBA or Hamelman in any big way to accommodate the altitude. I think you'll be OK.
Be sure to score thoughtfully though, the oven spring can be impressive, especially if you're a little underproofed. Don't hesitate to add a touch more salt if you find your bread a little blander than you get at home. Try it first though. There's something about altitude that messes with taste receptors in that area for some people.
Good luck
I bake at 5280 feet with no adjustment from sea level formulas. I bake sourdough breads and a lot of whole grains.
My quick look at advice for breads at a slightly higher altitude finds that for bread (unlike for cakes, etc.) no adjustments may be required. There are comments about rising times being shorter, but at my altitude I cannot honestly say that this is the case.
One thing that is different is the boiling point of water, so if you use a thermometer to check to see if the loaf is baked, the loaf will be done at a lower temperature than at sea level. Water boils at 200F in my kitchen and a loaf that reads 200F is well baked.
Hope this helps.
Thank you for the information. I'm new to the internet as well (this being my first attempt at communication), but I am finding this site to be incredibly useful.